WORKSHOP volunteers at Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre are making excellent progress on their latest project - recreating the front turret of a Sunderland flying boat.

The turret, with its Vickers machine gun, was on view when Pembrokeshire Aviation Group members met at the Centre for their February meeting.

Recovered from wartime Sunderland T9044, which sank in Milford Haven in 1940, the Frazer Nash F.N.11 turret is a very rare example, and may even be the only one surviving today.

Rik Sandanha, leader of the team working on the turret, was the PAG’s guest speaker, recounting the story of this famous flying boat and what it is like to dive on the Haven Sunderland. He is a member of the Sunderland Trust Dive Group which monitors the site and has recovered many artefacts from it.

The turret project follows on the full size Sunderland cockpit replica which Rik and his team previously completed; and now is a star attraction at the Heritage Centre.